Colby to write Cruzan story

Bill Colby, who represented Nancy Cruzan and her family in a seminal "right-to-die" case that went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, has left Shook Hardy & Bacon to write a book on the saga.

"I've been thinking about it for a while," said Colby, 43. "... It will focus on the story, the family, the human costs and, really, all the people involved, because the case grew bigger than this family from Carterville."

Colby said he has contacted an agent and hopes to put together a book proposal in the next six months to a year.

"Everyone says pretty much the same thing: `It's a story people would like to hear. Now we have to see if you can write.'"

For four years, from January 1987 until December 1990, Colby represented Nancy Cruzan and her family pro bono, meaning Shook Hardy & Bacon absorbed the costs.

Nancy Cruzan lapsed into a vegetative state after a 1983 car accident. Her parents sought to have her feeding tubes removed, but the state of Missouri appealed a lower court ruling ordering the feeding stopped.

In 1988, the Missouri Supreme Court, by a 4-3 vote, reversed the lower court.

"We choose to err on the side of life," the court wrote, "respecting the rights of incompetent persons who may wish to live despite a severely diminished quality of life."

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Missouri court's holding that "clear and convincing evidence" of an incompetent patient's wishes is required in such situations. After evidence was later offered that Cruzan would not have wanted to live in a vegetative state, her feeding tubes were removed on Dec. 15, 1990. She died 11 days later.

Colby said the suicide two years ago of Cruzan's father, Joe, helped convince him to proceed with the book idea.

"People who know me know I've been talking about it for awhile. It was time to either do it or quit talking."

Colby said he would support himself in the meantime by doing consulting work for one of his clients, the trade association of Midas Muffler franchisees.

"And Shook Hardy & Bacon has been good to me in many ways, including financially," Colby added. "That's given me a little bit of a cushion."

Books galore

Organizers of a just-concluded book drive to benefit six battered women's shelters in Kansas City report they collected more than 5,400 books and $800 in donations. The original goal was to collect 100 to 200 books.

The drive was sponsored by the Young Lawyers Section Special Project Committee of the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association, the Jackson County Law Library and the Kansas City Association of Law Libraries.